


Gracious goes the ghost of you

by mehmehmeh



Category: The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Dubious Morality, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mildly Dubious Consent, dubious everything, nurses minho and newt, or are they really, psychiatric patient thomas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 03:02:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4547667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mehmehmeh/pseuds/mehmehmeh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which nothing is as it seems and everyone is very not right in the head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gracious goes the ghost of you

**Author's Note:**

> EXTREMELY DUBIOUS MORALS / bad professional conduct / shitty depiction of psychiatric hospitals / pretty much fucked up all around ...

 

“Open your eyes.”

 

Thomas blinks.

The room swims in and out of focus like a flickering lightbulb–light, dark, light, dark again. Each time his vision wavers, the shadows move. Some times they crowd closer and he can almost taste their breath. Maybe he should feel frightened, but his head is numb and his fingertips are cold. Thomas blinks again. What is there to be afraid of when he is already dead anyway?

“Open your eyes, Tommy.”

“Shuck, he can’t hear can he. I told you that was too much–”

“I didn’t hear you objecting when he was thrashing around trying to break your jaw. Now shut up and hold out his arm.” 

Something tightens around his skin and Thomas immediately feels uncomfortable. But then he feels warmth, slightly dry but soothing, touch the back of his neck in a gentle caress.

“Easy, Thomas. This is just to help you, alright? Trust me.”

I don’t care, Thomas tries to say. I don’t care because I’m a corpse. The shadows waver like they are unsure of what to do. Thomas wishes it would just take him already, make him invisible too. The light continues to irritate his eyes and it would be just so much easier if he couldn’t see.

“Shhh, Tommy. Its alright. We’re here for you. We’re gonna take care of you.”

In answer to Thomas’s bubbling “how?”, there is a slight pressure followed by a memory of pain. Whatever that holds his skin–his arm–tightens while the warmth on his neck moves as if to match his heartbeat. “Thats it. You’re going to feel better now. You did so well, Thomas. You did so well.”

The room undulates and Thomas finds that the shadows begin to flitter away into its proper place, molding into a bed, a chair, a small table, and two faces.

He blinks.

 

“There you are.”

 

The voice he now recognizes as Newt’s is accompanied with a warm smile. His hair is slightly wild like he had been pulling on it but his eyes are smiling to match his grin and it makes Thomas feel relieved. The warm pressure on the back of his neck continues, and he looks up to see Minho practically cradling him from behind. They are all sat on the floor, Thomas more sprawled than in a sitting position, making him wonder how they all got there in the first place. The uncomfortable position is starting to make his spine ache against the hard floor, but Thomas doesn’t want to break his little cocoon.

It feels safe. Safer than  _out there._

 

“Tommy” The call is gentle steel, urging Thomas to respond. Thomas licks his lips and gives a dry cough testing his vocal chords. 

“..Wh, what happened..?” He didn’t expect his voice to come out that weak. He feels Minho’s arm hold him a little closer.

“You gave us a scare is what happened, shuckface.”

“You had another episode,” Newt gives a more helpful answer after sending a frown at Minho.

With those words, a few images swim back into Thomas’s memory: A smiling woman sitting across the room, reassuring him that there is no wicked in the world—Lush trees and vegetable gardens with jumping pigs in the distance–A never ending corridor infiltrated with creeping metal clicks and red lights.

Thomas blinks again. “Oh.”

“Yea, ‘oh’. You almost got me a shiner for it too so thanks for that.” Minho huffs in mock irritation and then moves to stand up, hoisting Thomas along with him. His body feels sluggish and his butt is cold from sitting on the floor for god knows how long. Yet his mind is surprisingly clear.

 

Thomas knows who he is, where he is, and why he is here. And isn’t that something—-considering the last time he woke up to peering faces?

 

“Lets get you to bed. Should lie down after all that excitement.”

Minho keeps his arm around Thomas’s waist and Newt hovers close by but Thomas pretty much manages to walks to the small pipe bed on his own. It creaks ominously as he settles down between the stiff sheets and it takes a while to find comfort between a lumpy duvet and an unrelenting mattress.

But Thomas knows better than to complain about the quality of his bedding in a psychiatric ward.

 

“All set, princess?” Minho gives a cheeky grin and Thomas snorts.

“Prince Charming gonna give me a good night kiss?”

“Only if you can swallow good.”

“Oh my god” Newt interrupts before Thomas can answer and thrusts two paper cups into his face.

His eyebrows are cocked in inquiry, and Thomas happily nods in consent. It is a wonder why Newt insists on asking since its almost standard procedure at this point. Thomas watches as Newt shakes out the two tablets from one of the cups and puts both of them in his mouth. Then he sits down on the edge of Thomas’s bed, leaning over until their eyelashes brush against one another and there is no more distance between them.

Thomas closes his eyes. The chemicals pass between their shared saliva and heat, flesh mesh with flesh as they share the same oxygen and they are both so alive at this moment he could almost cry.

Newt is alive. Thomas is alive. Minho is alive.

Once the pills have exchanged mouths, Newt silently gets up only to be replaced by Minho holding a cup of water. He does not say anything as he takes a sip and presses his mouth on Thomas’s just like Newt did. Thomas relishes the contact, drinks the lukewarm water like its the sweetest thing he has ever tasted. The pills wash down his throat and settle in his stomach but Thomas knows what helps him sleep every night.

Two faces look down at him and Thomas blinks. They are both smiling down at him, eyes revealing the tenderest of emotion.

 

I love you, they say.

I love you too, Thomas answers.

And he will not lose them this time. This time, he is going to do it right.

 

**

**

**

**

**

 

“So, are we back to square one.” 

At Minho's question, Newton sighs and runs his hand through his hair. He feels like he has been beaten, punched in the tenderest parts, and he is tired enough to feel physically sore. It had seemed so promising. Thomas was doing better,  _getting_  better, for the past three months. No hallucinations, no panic attacks, no escape attempts, and then….“I don’t know.”

Min-ho shakes his head, making new marks on Patient 250′s medical records. “At least he seemed to recognize his surroundings. This time he didn’t cry when he saw you’re ‘alive’” Min-ho comments, shrugging off Newton's scathing glare. “We are both important characters in his post-apocalyptic fiction drama. I think you should be flattered that you play such a big role in it.”

“Sure, he loves me enough to kill me,” Newton snorts. Min-ho cocks his eyebrows and laughs.

“Well come on, between you and me, who would survive a sun-less world plagued by a killer zombie virus?”

It is not a mean laugh but it carries a tinge of sadness and fatigue. Newton allows a smile to keep things light but he knows that both of them are aching with the same hollowness.

 

It was probably the stupidest if not most unprofessional thing they could’ve done.

To use Thomas’s delusions in order to get closer, to speak to him, and see what monsters lived in the maze of his mind. Taking advantage of Thomas’s strong affection towards them... “Newt” and “Minho” were Thomas’s best friends, his comrades, and his twin towers of shattered stability. He loved the two wholeheartedly if not desperately and they loved him back with equal fervor.

Still, Thomas's love did not come from attraction.

It was false sentiment based on paranoid hallucinations and imaginary events that happened in a future parallel universe.

 

Did it help that they genuinely cared for Patient 250, Thomas Greene?

Did it make a difference that Newton and Min-ho have admitted to each other, after one particularly trying night, that they both loved the troubled man?

Did it change anything that they were wiling to give everything if that meant Thomas can escape this facility and return to normalcy?

 

Newton scoffed at his own line of thought, earning a questioning glance from Minho which he did not care to answer.

Newton knew how to sugar-coat everything so it was easier to swallow; however, he also knew that he was no saint. Neither was Min-ho. Their hope that Thomas will get better was laced with a viscous fear that clung like shadows, leaving sticky black handprints on everything precious and beautiful: Thomas’s curious brown eyes, his rare laughter, their shared silence, waking up with the softest of touches, saying good night with the deepest of kisses.

 

 

~~_What if Thomas refused to love us for who we really are?_ ~~

 

 

“Grab a bite?”

“I’m more in the mood for a drink.”

“My place then.”

Min-ho opens the staff room door, heading to file away Thomas’s records as Newton walks over to the lockers. He absentmindedly starts unbuttoning his uniform, remembering how Thomas’s eyes glazed over and started stuttering about Flares and Immunity and Where is this? Is this Paradise? He slams the locker door closed, barely noticing the flaking paint that marks all of the hospital property with the initials WCKD.

“Ready when you are.”

“Lets go then.”

 

As he follows Min-ho out to the parking lot, Newton wonders whether he should be allowed to walk outside and get drunk when he feels so drawn to someone who is clearly not right in the head. A light breeze plays with Minho’s hair and Newton can feel dusk approaching. He knew what he felt for Thomas wasn’t professional curiosity or compassion. It wasn’t even particularly sexual, skirting the edge between Eros and Philia, almost platonic enough to be familial. He knew that Min-ho held similar feelings as well, having confessed that he just wanted to hold Thomas close and listen to his heartbeat. 

“I want to protect him.” Minho had said.

“I agree.” Newt had answered.

 

 

They both clamor into Min-ho’s small car and the engine starts. The radio informs them that there is a storm heading their way but both Newton and Min-ho pay no attention as they drive further and further away from their pet monster. 

 

And between white sheets, Thomas smiles in restful sleep because he knows his ghosts are here to stay.

 

 

 

 


End file.
